Thanks for all your kind words and support.

I am posting so many of these photos and descriptions so that others may get an idea of how to do things (or how not to do them when the results aren't good).  Also to let folks know that modifying a bike is not for the faint hearted or those who cannot remain focused - and it takes a lot of work to get it done.  (I have a nephew that can start projects - but he never gets them completed and has filled his parents farm buildings with all of his failed projects......the farm will be sold in a year or two and it remains to be seen what will happen with all of this junk).

This is the time of year when I can get a lot of garage time, and being retired helps considerably.  There isn't much of anything I can do outside as the ground is just too wet to allow any kind of wood cutting or equipment travel across the yard.

I did take a few days last week to build a waste oil burner to put in my outdoor wood furnace.  With our cars and equipment I get a significant amount of waste oil that I need to do something with.  I had seen on YouTube a number of folks who had built burners that can burn waste oil efficiently.  I built this from an old freon tank and some exhaust pipe and copper tubing.  It uses gravity flow for the oil - and the oil tank is another old freon tank that sits a couple of feet higher than the burner.  The air supply is a 50cfm electric blower.  

Well....I am bailing out on the XS400 pegs.  They just seem a bit too hard to get right - the brake lever and clearance of the swingarm and header is just too restrictive.....and the shifter lever remains a concern.

I am going with a modern set of folding rearsets that will be far easier to adapt.

I have a set like that I bought for the tracker cause they were folding , unlike the Ryca set. They won’t work on the 250 , maybe for the SR500. Super easy to mount and fab control rods , good choice. Good to keep a set on the shelf , never know when you’ll build a bike ! LOL

The square tubing is right at 2-1/4" long, and it is close to being correct.  If I want to reduce how far the pegs are out - I can take a bit off prior to welding on the outer plates.  I will weld the tubes to the inner plates, then use the bolts to hold the outer plates while I figure out how they will be shaped and the location of the pegs.

That looks awesome Dave.  I was going to add a center brace to my mids but it turned out strong enough without it.  But, the brace is a superior design for sure.

It turns out that I could not use hex head bolts inside the square tubing, as the back side where the hex head is located has a frame member behind - so I had to use countersunk head bolts.

I tried all the local hardware stores and I could not find a 3/8" countersunk bolt that was 2.5" long.  I drove over to Florence Hardware and they did not have a 3/8" that was long enough - but they did have one in the 1/2" diameter box.  So I switched to 1/2" bolts.

So, is the intent of the long countersunk bolt simply to hold things together while toy weld it up?  Do you think a set of these mid controls could be fabricated without welding.  Almost looks like you could do that.  

Very nice job.  Looks factory.